Tag Archives: do it yourself

Many small businesses looking at web design on Kauai or anywhere else in Hawaii or around the world are finding free website alternatives online. But what does free really mean? Are you being smart and economical or are you locking into something with other implications and challenges? Over 6 million people and businesses have joined Weebly and have set up many more million websites on their platform. Websiteooltester.com covers the pros and cons of many of the free website providers. So wouldn’t that be the way to go? With them or one of their competitors? Not necessarily.

In economics the principle that there is no such thing as a free lunch is used to denote that everything has an opportunity cost. The phrase was used early on in the U.S. in the days of saloons that offered a “free lunch” if you purchased at least one drink. It was also used to talk about government corruption. But in modern times the economist Milton Friedman helped to make the phrase really popular by using it as the title of his 1975 book.

The concept that nothing is free serves to remind us that there is an opportunity cost to everything. By choosing one investment you have an opportunity cost of what the alternative would have been. Even if someone does invite you for a free lunch, there may be some other agenda or obligation on your part. At the very least there is an opportunity cost of the alternative ways that you could have used your time while eating the free lunch. Your time has value and that value is determined by how you use it.

What does free lunch have to do with a free website?

There is opportunity cost to accepting a free website. You are choosing a set of parameters, design styles, contracts, and timeframes for a free website that may sound good in the short term, but have other costs. After all, who doesn’t want free? You’re starting a new small business and you’re looking to do everything economically. However, being economical may not automatically mean taking the free alternative.

What are some of the advantages of the free website?

It’s free! (well, mostly anyway)

The tools are simple and easy to use

It’s fast to do

You can do it yourself

The complexity of web design tools, domain names and web hosting are masked to you

There are a lot of pre-loaded designs available

The sites are large and growing and adding features over time

What to look out for with free website providers

Is the domain name registered in your name? Can you take it with you?

Are you obligated/required to purchase other services from the free website provider?

How long is the hosting contract with the free provider?

Is the free part limited to a certain time period?

Will they display ads on your site? Will you be able to control the type and placement?

Will they add other external links to your site?

What level of support do they provide and in your time zone?

Do they provide any system availability guarantees?

Do they run regular backups of your site in case of a crash?

Do they require a setup fee or other admin fee?

Do they charge for monthly hosting and is it a higher fee than the industry average?

If you decide to switch later to a custom site can you take the site with you and transfer it to another host?

They may say they will submit your site to search engines, but are there any tools or guidelines to optimize your site for search engines to rank highly?

Do they provide a branded email address with your domain or is that an additional charge?

How much space do they provide? How expensive will it be to upgrade if your business grows?

You have access only to the features they provide

There are limits to what you can customize to your business

What happens to your site if the company is acquired or goes out of business?

You may be thinking I’ll start out with this free website and then switch to a custom one later. That may not be possible to do or it may be costly. You may be disappointed when you are not showing up in search engine rankings, but another web designer can’t help you without building a new website.

Is a free website good marketing?

Free websites continue to improve and add features, but it may still be apparent to your prospective customers that it is a free website. How serious are you about your business? Do you look like a business that is investing to succeed? Or do you look like thousands of other Weebly sites who have chosen the same design template?

Your web site is one of the key marketing tools to reach your new and existing customers. Are you able to provide compelling content in a way that makes sense to them and that reflects the unqueness of your company?

If upfront cost is the issue, you may be able to work with your web designer or digital marketing partner to bundle the cost into a year long contract that could include web hosting or other social media services. If they are open to that alternative, you may be able to spread part or all of the upfront cost over a longer contract with them. You may want to consider alternatives other than just looking at the upfront price and making that your sole decision criterion.

I have heard the question of whether a Kauai small business needs social media marketing. On the island of Kauai we have a small town culture. People take time to talk story with each other. People know people who know people. There are a lot of word of mouth business referrals. But there are also many businesses whose target customers include not only locals, but also visitors. Small businesses here and in other parts of the world are wondering what to do about social media marketing and whether it is worth the time and effort. As a small business owner your goal should not be excellence at social media. Your goal should be to increase your business by picking and choosing some social media marketing that will reach your customers and prospects cost effectively. You could get social media training to do it yourself or you could hire someone to write and manage marketing content for you.

Why Kauai small business social media marketing matters

Gain awareness of your target audience, whether locals, transplants, or visitors: People increasingly look for information online and on the go. There are local Facebook groups for causes and for rants and raves. There are locals, transplants, and visitors not only searching the web, but also searching social media for Kauai information, products, and services. Kauai small business is fortunate to have many repeat visitors. What are you doing to stay in touch with them and make sure they do business with you on their next visit? What are you doing to encourage them to share information about your business with friends and neighbors who may also visit sometime? Social media is another place to find out about your small business and to stay connected over time. It is also a fast and affordable place to do A/B testing of content to see what your target customers responds to most and where they do it from.

Drive traffic to your web site: Having a web site is a basic start for online marketing. Getting your web site noticed, though, is the goal for attracting new business. Social media visibility and sharing useful content for your target audience can help to drive people to your web site for more information and to take action. Or it may cause their friends and neighbors to become aware of your web site by seeing a “like” or share.

Capture contact info for email marketing and newsletters: Sharing interesting content in social media may be the hook to get someone interested in your Kauai small business. You now have a reason for them to give you their contact info and to sign up for email updates or a newsletter. They may become aware of your blog posts and updated useful content that will cause them to come to your web site and fill out a form to contact you. Yes, it’s good to have this on your web site. But you can use social media to interest people in contacting you.

Induce trial of your product or service: In addition to generating awareness through social media, you may also be able to induce a trial of your product or service. Providing useful, interesting content can cause them to take action to request more information or to visit your shop. You might also offer a special promotion on social media for a free sample at a certain time that creates an urgency and excitement to be shared with other friends and neighbors.

Foster customer relationships and repeat business: Social media marketing is also a great way to retain customers, to deepen customer relationships, and re-inforce their buying behavior with you. We feel proud as consumers when we see an ad or promotion for a brand that we use and with which we have a positive relationship. Your customers will feel a much stronger connection to your business by also knowing more about you, your suppliers, your employees, your locations, etc. We all like a peak behind the scenes and to feel like we are insider.

Create social media referrals in addition to word of mouth referrals: This is a real strength of social media marketing. Humorous, emotional, or just useful content doesn’t have to go viral to benefit your business. But having your customers’ friends and contacts seeing and hearing about your brand is an online word of mouth that can spread much faster and certainly much wider than just talking story at the farmer’s market or other local gathering spot. What are the chances that your small business will come up in conversation? But if there is useful or interesting information on social media, that can be seen by or shared with others.

How a Kauai small business can get started

Social media marketing for a Kauai small business takes some time and effort. But you don’t have to be everywhere. Work with an advisor to pick and choose the platforms that make the most sense for your target customers. Focus on one or a few. Don’t try to be an expert on every social media platform. Focus on the content to be interesting, humorous, emotional, useful (see our other blog posts on compelling content). It’s not about selling. It’s about communicating, gaining awareness, inducing trial, and fostering customer relationships. Test to see what works and to focus your efforts on those that produce real results to grow your business.

So if you are a Kauai small business, you can likely survive without social media marketing, but will you thrive?

You may be looking at our site and wondering if you could do all this yourself. Can’t anyone do online and social media marketing? The answer is yes. There is nothing magic here. It is not rocket science. But will you or should you do it yourself? It’s

time consuming

requires learning new skills

needs new tools

is easy to forget or de-prioritze

Marketing strategy

You know the most about your business. You’re the one who runs it every day. You may know the most about your current and potential customers. You can talk to your own customers and prospects to understand their buying behavior and how they search and use information online related to your product or service. You can research and monitor your competitors online. You can create your own logo and brand identity or hire a graphic designer to assist. You can research marketing best practices and new technologies. It takes time. It may take even more time until you have gained some experience.

You could use a soup to nuts digital marketing platform, like HubSpot. It will cost you more money, but it will provide all the tools and already has them integrated. We looked at HubSpot for our business, but thought we could be more economical, have more flexibility, and do our own integration to achieve a higher return on investment. Many small and medium-sized businesses are going this direction for digital marketing. It’s not cheap and it will take time. You will be locked into their tools and integration platform, but it may easier and faster to do it this way. And you have complete control of what or what isn’t done.

Web site

Yes, you can develop a web site. There are tools available now to do a simple web site using drag and drop. It will get you a web site, but will it communicate in the way your audience looks for information? Will it lock you into using one particular company’s technology? Are they stable and well-established or are they a start-up that may disappear?

We use WordPress to develop a web site. You could install and learn it, too. It’s the most popular web site development tool. You could take a class on it. It will still take some trial and error to learn the ins and outs. And there are lots of options, like themes and plugins to consider and choose as part of your design. You will also have to register a domain name, select a web hosting service, and install whatever web design tool you choose.

You can choose the topics and write/edit your own blog posts. You can keep your site up to date both with the latest technology updates and compelling content.

You can also learn and do SEO (search engine optimization).

Email newsletters

You can also do this on your own. You will need to manage your own email list. You will need a design for your newsletters. You will need to write and edit. You could use a service for this, like Constant Contact.

Social media marketing

You can decide which social media platforms you want to use for your customers. You can write, schedule, and post compelling updates. You can decide whether or not to run ads on social media. You can create and post ads and monitor their results. It just takes getting familiar with each platform, best practices for using it, etc. You can also get a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to help manage and monitor your social media marketing. We use Hootsuite so that we can schedule posts across multiple social media sites at once.

Analytics

You can set up Google tracking code for your web site and use Google Analytics to analyze its performance (and performance of your social media to drive web site traffic) relative to your marketing strategy. You can get and monitor analytics for ads placed on social media sites. It’s all available online. You can read about it or take a course. It takes some time and some analytical skills.

So yes, you can do all this digital marketing stuff yourself. Do you have the skills or the time to acquire the skills? Is it where you want to use your management time and creativity?